‘ His name’s Connor Duffy,’ Jenny said, looking up from her screen. ‘Mum’s got twin girls of eighteen months,’ she added, raising her eyes to heaven.
‘Poor bitch!’ Jackie replied. ‘Is Charlie away to take their photo, then?’
‘Aye,’ Jenny replied shortly. ‘Boss wants the copy in by close of today, so I best get cracking.’
The young journalist pursed her lips as she glanced at the scraps of notes lying next to her computer. Connor Duffy, aged five, had wandered away from his home in Upper Port Glasgow and been discovered drowned in the waters of the local quarry before his mother had even known he was missing. It was tempting to put that little snippet in, but Jenny found she simply hadn’t the heart. The poor woman was beside herself with anguish; why rub it in? With twin toddlers to run after it was hardly surprising that she’d taken her eyes off the wee boy for a while. No, she’d milk the grieving mother bit instead; readers loved that.
Jenny shifted her shoulders as though something inside was itching, but in truth it was nothing more than an overburdened conscience.
Connor Duffy, aged five, she began to type, immediately deleting the words as she sought a better beginning. Jenny shook her head at the waste of such a young life, refusing to let her thoughts dwell on how awful it must be for the parents.
Angela Duffy stared at the ceiling, her head throbbing. Was she ill? Was that why she was in this room with the blinds drawn against the daylight outside? She tried to swallow, feeling her throat thick with mucus. There was a metallic taste in her mouth that was unfamiliar. Had she been given drugs of some sort?
Gradually the reason for her presence in this hospital bed came back to her and with it the awful realisation that she would never see Connor again.
The mewing sound that came from her throat rose to a crescendo like an animal being tortured.
Angela was oblivious to the door being pushed open, the nurses scuttling to her bedside or the needle being inserted into her arm. All she could feel was the searing pain of guilt and rage and loss.
NEWS: In Brief
A young boy who died on Wednesday after falling into water at Whitemoss Quarry in Inverclyde has been named as Connor Duffy. Emergency services were called out after a passing cyclist found the body. A report has been sent to the Procurator Fiscal.
So now he had a name. I shrugged. It wasn’t as if I was keeping a diary of my exploits, but it was reassuring to see it written there in inky newsprint: Connor Duffy. I even had a modest walk-on part in the drama: the passing cyclist who calls out the police to tell them what has happened. Except I didn’t, of course. I would never tell them how I had swung the child’s hand up and down as we’d sung songs strolling over the rough stones. Swinging his hands had given me the idea. He’d giggled then chuckled as I’d picked him up, grasping one hand and one foot, swinging his arms and legs round and round. It was a good game, that, I could tell. Someone else had swung him like that before, up and down as if he were a small flying bat, his shirt tails billowing in the breeze.
The look of surprise on his face when I let him go was almost comical. It was as if he didn’t know how to change that stupid grin into something more appropriate. Perhaps when he hit the water his mouth had contorted into an expression of fear. I don’t know, because he was turned away from me. But I did see his wee face bobbing up and down, gasping fish-like for air, his eyes goggled with terror. And that did reward me with some satisfaction. I could stand there watching his final moments, seeing him slip under the surface until the bubbles finally ceased and I knew for certain that he was dead.
The first two had been easy, though I’d had to plan meticulously, of course. Leaving things to chance was never my forte. The old woman hadn’t understood what was happening and the itinerant was so greedy he was gagging for breath almost as soon as he’d taken that first bite.
Deciding to kill a child had been something of a challenge. It would test my powers of resolve, diminish any residual sentimentality and provide me with an opportunity to be at the scene when the police arrived; the innocent bystander doing the right thing. But I’d wanted to see the kid’s face when they pulled him from the water, make sure that he was as dead as I’d supposed. Those huge blue eyes gazing into mine, the trustful little hand letting me lead him over the hill and down to the quarry; he’d never look into anyone’s eyes again. If he even reached the pathologist’s table, all that would remain would be twin orbs of viscous jelly.
I’d passed my own test then, I decided. I was capable of killing anyone I wanted. And that little thought led me to ask the question: of all the people in my world, whom exactly did I want to kill?